What draws one instantly is the pairing. The amount of material for each would justify their own volumes, and after antiquity the literary and artistic material in the West is greater for the Judgement of Paris than for Heracles at the Crossroads. Davies had already compared Paris with Solomon,[1] laying the Plutarchan structural groundwork of two contrasting figures. Davies reminds the reader in a section on ‘Prodicus and the Judgement of Paris’ (101-105) that Sophocles in his lost satyr play, Krisis, and Athenaeus 510C had already drawn the parallels between Heracles and Paris. Stesichoros[2] and the myth/play summaries of ps.-Apollodorus (as also Hyginus) add some (little) extra material.
Heracles (1-137) receives the bulk of the attention over Paris (139-204), and the book concludes, not with a syncrisis, but with an annex containing 8 passages (205-65) from Xenophon’s Memorabilia (2.1.21) through Lattimore’s 1956 poem on “Hercules at the Crossroads”. Sadly, Xenophon is not in the index at all (as also Lattimore), and the index entries for Handel, Parnell, Lowth, and Congreve do not cite the pages in the annex. Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 6.10, is subsumed in the Xenophon passage (and not indexed). The passages chosen are mainly Georgian through Regency, three of which are music, and include, on purpose (and appreciated), doggerel as well as high art.
Panofsky[3] remains the essential starting point of any serious study of the Choice of Heracles and Davies is right (131-36) to give an appendix to Panofsky’s “Density of content and felicity of expression” (quoting Kristeller).[4] It is Davies’ declared intention, while not neglecting the better-known paintings and engravings, to include, whenever possible, Renaissance and later art that has not received attention and to publish colour reproductions for objects here-to-fore known in publications only in black and white. Davies acknowledges the recent, important collaborative volumes edited Ogden,[5] Blanshard and Stafford,[6] Allan, Anagnostou-Laoutides and Stafford,[7] Mainz and Stafford,[8] and Stafford.[9] His grasp of the scholarship is exhaustive and thorough and (helpfully) is provided in footnotes rather than in a long bibliography at the end of the book. The bibliography at the end of the book is thus restricted to what Davies considers the 17 most important items, not including editions and translations of the Myth of Prodicus (xvii). The books and articles on the Judgement are as up-to-date and significant appreciations of the art and literature.
The writing is clear and crisp and shows an amazing grasp of voluminous amounts of material. His respect, and good-humoured affection, for what he examines is everywhere apparent.[10] Each chapter is designed to be stand-alone but also corresponds to other parts of the book. Both sections begin with a ‘Note on Nomenclature’ (3, 141), the first on the difficulty of translating personified Arete and Kakia, and the latter in stating his preference for the Greek names of the deities in the Judgement. Each section has a chapter not reflected in the other. ‘Pleasure and Virtue Reconciled’ (105-16)[11] takes its title from a woodcut by Bonasone (1555) accompanied by a poem loosely based on a section of Vergil, Eclogue 6. Choice implies opposition but Davies indicates that they can, and do, concur in Renaissance and Enlightenment literature, such as Jonson, and art, such as a theatre token framed by Virtus and Voluptas. Much shorter is the chapter on ‘The Judgement of Paris: The Story’s Original Form’ (142-44), which makes the point that Heracles virtually disappeared in the Middle Ages but the Judgement of Paris remained vibrant. The difficulty balances ancient art for which the evidence is extremely rich and the story in literature based almost entirely on the Homeric Cypria, largely known through Athenaeus.
Because the Medieval Paris is without a parallel in Heracles, Davies gives it its own chapter, ‘Medieval Literature and Art’ (145-53), followed by ‘Renaissance Art Onwards’ (154-78). Ehrhardt[12] has magisterially positioned the transformation of the Judgement of Paris into one of ‘chivalry and courtly romance’ (145). Davies thus adds where he sees the Medieval Paris as preserving threads and tropes from antiquity. The chapter focuses on four manuscript illustrations from versions which are largely didactic. What emerges is that Paris has, in essence, become a negative example (150) to Heracles, who makes the right choice, even if he does not live it. Davies chooses Cranach the Elder over Boticelli to represent the tradition of Paris as a knight errant relegated to irrelevance by the genius of Raphael (via Raimondi). The three, naked goddesses, beg comparison with ancient and later depictions of the three Graces in posture and attitude. Rubens and his younger contemporary, Jordaens, simplified Raphael’s crowded scene to just the main participants with Paris reverting to a shepherd. Groups almost without exception until the nineteenth century have at least one figure displaying her ‘beautiful bottom’ (kallipygeia, 163-66). The number of takes on Heracles between Arete and Kakia are always a great pleasure to see. Everyone has a favourite and mine would be Sir Joshua Reynolds if Angela Kauffman does not constantly seduce me away. There are so many in this chapter, both old favourites and some less often illustrated, to choose from. An appendix adds two Punch parodies of Reynolds’ painting of Garrick (15-17), one of Churchill (1925) and one of Hitler (1938). The variety is astonishing – in a series of images from the late 1490s and first decade of the sixteenth century, the figure substituting for Heracles adopts the pose of the recumbent Paris. Heracles’ choice obviously has parallels in Christ which are discussed in detail (45-55). Dürer and Veronese get special attention (62-66).
Productions of music have not been kind to Heracles. Handel’s Hercules (HWV 60, 1745, libretto by Broughton) and his Choice of Hercules (HWV 69, 1751, libretto by Lowth) had limited and unsuccessful runs. Bachs’s Hercules am Scheideweg [Die Wahl des Hercules] (BWV 213) premiered in a coffee shop. Both Bach and Handel cabbaged some songs from other compositions, of interest to the debate on whether Senecan choral odes were written independent of the plays. Hasse’s Alcide al Bivio (1760, libretto by Metastasio) receives the most attention (73-74, 78-80, including three illustrations). Choosing between Edonide (Hedonism) and Areté, Hercules is assisted by Fronimo, substituting for Iolaos. Saint-Saëns’ (1877) La Jeunesse d’Hercule (1877) suffers from a difficult key and over ambition. The story of the Judgement of Paris invites excess. The opera, Il Pomo d’Oro by Cesti (1668, libretto by Sbarra) had 66 scenes and 44 roles. Weldon’s Judgement of Paris (1701, libretto by Congreve) was part of a competition of five operas (184-87). Scribe and Legouvé inserted a ballet in their opera. Offenbach (1864) offered a comic opera (187), while Weill composed a ’Satyric ballet in one act’ (188).
There is far more discussion of Literature and Drama for Heracles (81-105) than for Paris (179-83). Apuleius 10.31-34 shows the story is more suited to pantomime and burlesque which is used to suggest the scarcity of serious stage treatments (179). Peele’s Arraignment of Paris (ca. 1581) performed for Elizabeth I (179-81) perhaps proves the rule in that the apple is awarded to the nymph Eliza (ie., Elizabeth), a scene depicted earlier (1569) in a painting by Eworth (or perhaps Hoefnagel). The ancient Greek instinct of polar opposites would have appealed in the Middle Ages (79-84) as filtered through Church Fathers. Its re-introduction to the literary canon is through the Florentine Coluccio Salutati whose knowledge of the story is via Cicero (84-85). It is the ‘emblem books’ of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in which Heracles is the emblem of virtue that repopularises the myth (85-86) meant as instruction for the young. The story, equally, lent itself to satire (also performed in schools, 86) and masques, such as Sir Philip Sidney’s Lady of May (87). Stuart and Georgian moralizing, however, wins out (88-95). Goethe through Proust (97-101) show how the frame of story (now grown trite) lurked in the background of the Romantics and their successors.
The two chapters on ‘Parody and Pastiche’ (117-37, 191-204) are conclusions to their sections. The second in the series of eight paintings (1732-1734) on ‘A Rake’s Progress’, that is the anti-hero Tom Rakewell, by Hogarth has a painting of the Judgement of Paris in the background (202-203). Moll Hackabout in Hogarth’s series, ‘A Harlot’s Progress’ (1731, now known from engravings 1732) chooses Vice in the form of a procuress over Virtue because the priest’s attention is diverted to a document for preferment (95-96). The lesson to be drawn is that the choices made are often the wrong ones. Hercules chooses death when he chooses Iole over Deianira in Sophocles and ps-Seneca. Sometimes the choices are trite or contrived (Kasich, p. 117 pl. 31) and many are in cartoons (Grover Cleveland, p.118 pl. 32, Disraeli and Gladstone seems inevitable, p. 120 pl. 33; for Churchill and Hitler, see above). An art deco woodcut parodies the myth but also, perhaps, Klimt (123 pl. 37). Bunbury’s Judgement of Paris (1771, pp. 191-92 pl. 61) sits perilously close to Punch and Judy. In gender reversals it is the personified Paris who bestows the apple to Napoleon III (195, pl. 64). Mr Punch is himself Cupid in several cartoons spoofing politics (pp. 63, 64). The securing of the vote for women led to a beauty contest between Baldwin, Llyod George and Macdonald (196-98), also from Punch. In this instance, the judge is the beauty and has the ultimate power.
The virtues of this book have been enhanced greatly by the quality of the editing.[13]
Notes
[1] Davies, Malcolm 2003. “The Judgements of Paris and Solomon”, Classical Quarterly 53.1, 32-43; Choice of Heracles pp. 33, 40-1, elaborated in “The Temptress throughout the Ages: Further Versions of Heracles at the Crossroads”, Classical Quarterly 54.2, 606-10.
[2] Davies, Malcolm and Patrick Finglass 2014. Stesichorus: The Poems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 328-9.
[3] Panofsky, Erwin 1930 [1997]. Hercules am Scheidewege und andere antike Bildstoffe in der neueren Kunst. Leipzig: Teubner.
[4] Kristeller, P. Oscar 1962. “Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art”, Art Bulletin 44, 66.
[5] Ogden, Daniel (ed.) 2021. The Oxford Companion of Heracles. Oxford: Oxford University Press; esp. the contributions by Bosman, A.C. Smith, and Hawes.
[6] Mainz, Valerie, and Emma Stafford (eds.) 2020. Exemplary Hercules. Leiden: Brill; esp. contributions by Woodall and Eppinger.
[7] Allan, Arlene, Evagelina Anagnostou-Laoutides, and Emma Stafford (eds.) 2020. Hercules inside and outside the Church: from the first apologists to the end of the quattrocento. Leiden: Brill; esp. contributions by Anagnostou-Laoutides, Eppinger, and Sienkewicz.
[8] Blanshard, Alastair J.L. and Emma Stafford (eds.) 2021. The Modern Hercules: Images of the Hero from the Nineteenth to the Early Twenty-first century. Leiden: Brill; esp. contributions by Blanshard and Stafford, Desmond, Schultze, and Okell and Gordon.
[9] Stafford, Emma (ed.) 2023. Hercules Performed. Leiden: Brill; esp. contributions by Stead, Hodkinson, and Okell. I include this even though Davies could not have known of it since her edited volume was in proofs and to press at the same time. Similarly, A Companion to Hercules (Wiley-Blackwell) is in preparation, for which Konstan, Degiovanni, Wagner, Agnosini,and Kershaw are relevant to the book under review.
[10] As most recently “Power and Paradox in Sophocles’ Antigone”, the published version of his talk in the Festschrift for Menelaos Christopoulos; https://classics-at.chs.harvard.edu/power-and-paradox-in-sophocles-antigone.
[11] The table of contents has the chapter start on p. 107 but the woodcut and poem are on pages 105 and 106.
[12] Ehrhardt, Margaret J. 1997. The Judgement of the Trojan Prince Paris in Medieval Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
[13] The editor Davies singles out for thanks (xii) in the preface has edited volumes of mine, and others I have known about, and one could not hope for more consistently excellent and thorough advice.